In general Mike, you need to loosen up on your approach to communication on the internet. Tight restrictions generally do much more harm then good and almost always accomplish nothing at all. Email and Email lists need to be loosely structured and informally managed or they lose their participating communities and then they die. If Cross posting truly becomes a problem on the RedHat lists You will here lots of folks start complaining about it. On Sat, Apr 12, 2003 at 09:54:53PM +0200, Michael Schwendt wrote: > On Sat, 12 Apr 2003 13:13:35 -0400, Jeff Kinz wrote: > > Cross posting is frequently the right thing to do. > This is new to me. It shouldn't be. Cross posting has been around almost as long as the internet itself. Twenty plus years. It has long been a supported and accepted practice on Usenet in mailing lists. > - How are those helpful people, who are going to reply to a > cross-posting, supposed to post to all the lists which they > are not subscribed to? They don't. They simply post their answer to the list they subscribe to. The person who posted the question will read it there. > - How do subscribers of list 'A' learn about replies that > are posted by someone to list 'B' only? They don't. Obviously. Mailing lists are a simple way to share information. There is no presumption that they are a centrally controlled or perfect knowledge distribution system. You will be much happier if you stop trying to make them behave as if they were. > - How to deal with contradictory replies? One correct > answer on list 'A', a wrong answer on list 'C'? But > you're not subscribed to list 'C'. The person asking the question will see both answers (since they are of course reading all the lists they posted the answer to.. ). That person will be able to test both answers and see which one is correct. At that time they then have an obligation to report back to at least the group where the wrong answer was posted and post the correct solution. > Cross-posting is waste of resources, especially a waste of time > due to redundant replies. As an absolute statement this fails completely. There are many times when cross-posting is completely OK and proper. It is true that sometimes cross-posting is poorly done but this does not happen often. (especially not when the email police officer Schwendt is on patrol! :-) Seriously, when someone does do something that is either abusive or extremely wasteful then they should be called on it, but crossposting is something we created for our own use and purposes. There is nothing more wrong with it than regular email. Both are useful and both can be misused. Simply crossposting an issue to more than one list does not constitute mis-use. > That's why you should subscribe and post only to the list that > covers your particular version of the distribution. Right..... and so if you subscribe to RH general you can't read or post to RH install or RH9. And all you people out there who are doing that, well you just stop it immediately.... :-) > And in case you think that not the right people hang out on that > list, there are separate lists for more specific problems, such > as installation, RPM, file-systems, and so on. > > https://listman.redhat.com > > If on one list you have still not received a reply after a few days, > look for a different list. If you are in search of urgent help, > consider purchasing 24/7 support or subscribe to the most active > list you find. Yes - I want to wait three days before trying the next list because Mike might become upset with me if I don't... > > Cross-posting is rude When it is done abusively, otherwise its a normal email practice. > > Since the person asking the question generally cannot tell if the problem is > > release specific it makes no sense for them to restrict the posting to a > > list-specific release. > Shortened the following four lines: > If you run Red Hat Linux 9, use shrike-list > If you run Red Hat Linux 8.0, use psyche-list > If you run Red Hat Linux Public Beta 8.0.9x, use phoebe-list > Where's the problem? The problem is that the issue being discussed may or may not be release specific so posting to the RH general list and the list associated with your release is appropriate. > > > Also many of the folks who are on the RedHat general > > list are very happy to learn about release specific issues there. > > What is the purpose of the version-specific lists then? More narrow targeting of topic. Its very helpful but, like everything on the internet, its not an absolute. > > > As another example: the Redhat install list and this list are frequently > > crossposted to and it is totally appropriate. -- Jeff Kinz, Open-PC, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. jkinz@xxxxxxxx copyright 2003. Use is restricted. Any use is an acceptance of the offer at http://www.kinz.org/policy.html. Don't forget to change your password often.
